


Id, Ego, Super

by LadyFeste



Series: The Hungry City [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a metahuman au, Comedy, Gen, Unconventional Forming of the Justice League, meta human status still unknown, with serious moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21963751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyFeste/pseuds/LadyFeste
Summary: A cryptid and an underwear model walk into Gotham
Series: The Hungry City [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1378894
Comments: 6
Kudos: 91





	Id, Ego, Super

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the delay in adding to this series. We've been waiting on me to finish this before moving on and I had a minor medical emergency at the beginning of November and then got struck down Hard with seasonal depression. But here we are! Sorry about the crunchy spacing halfway through, it's not pasting in consistently and I'm too lazy to fix it
> 
> Also, just in case you missed the last fic in the series: it's the 80s babes! The Superman Expose was published in the Daily Planet in 1986, and this story takes place in 1989. Dick was older, 13ish in this au when Bruce took him in and has been Robin for about a year now.

Bruce frowned deeply, drumming the tips of his fingers against the computer desk.

“I don’t know about this…”

Dick took another slurp of his juice box and draped himself over Bruce’s shoulder. “Aw, come on Brucester! We can handle it together, I know it. We always have before.” 

“There’s a first time for everything, Robin.” He said sharply. He thought for another moment and shook his head, resolved. “No. I don’t want you anywhere near this. I’ll find another way.”

Dick pushed himself upright, craning around to watch Bruce’s face, the first blush of outrage on his cheeks. “But you  _ need  _ me! You can’t take all those out on your own; there was a bajillion of them. You don’t even know what they are! You  _ haveta  _ let me help or—“

“No,” Bruce barked. “I’ve made my decision.”

“You can’t do that. We’re supposed to be  _ partners _ .”

“Not in this. Your safety comes first, Dick. We don’t know what those things are. I won’t risk your life on this.”

Dick’s face had gone completely red and he shoved away from Bruce, landing heavily back on his feet and slamming his juice inches away from Bruce’s hand. “You can’t just decide that for me!” 

“I already have.”

“No,” Dick howled, stamping his foot. “If you’re going, I’m going too! It’s not fair that you get to go and I don’t. I decided to put the mask on, just the same as you. I can decide to do this, too.” 

“That’s enough.” Bruce said, laying a heavy hand on Dick’s shoulder. “You’re my responsibility, Dick. It’s up to me to keep you, to keep this whole city safe. As long as you live in this house, you will follow my rules and you will only ever take what risks I deem acceptable.  _ This  _ is not an acceptable risk for a child.” Dick met his eyes with a dull glare, the vivid red in his cheeks slowly draining away. Bruce sighed. “You  _ are  _ still a child, Dick. When you’re an adult, you can take whatever risks you want. But for now, you need to  _ listen  _ to me.” Dick’s expression shifted and Bruce paused, ran the words back through his head. He would regret that in about four years, he was sure.

“Fine,” Dick bit out. “But that leaves you doing it alone. What happens if you get hurt?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Dick stuck his chin out mulishly. “You don’t know that for sure.”

Bruce sighed. “I don’t have a lot of other choices, chum.”

Dick frowned and wormed his way into Bruce’s lap, laying his head against Bruce’s shoulder as he thought. “You could get help. Call for backup.”

Bruce quirked an eyebrow, allowed his voice to warm with the teasing smile that spread on his face. “Is that so? And who is Batman supposed to call for backup?” 

Dick shrugged, unhappily and leaned forward just enough to snag his juice box. He took a long slurp until there was only the sound of sucking air. He smacked his lips, contemplatively before twisting to look up at Bruce. “I don’t know. You could call Superman, I guess. I bet he could help.”

Bruce tried not to laugh, he really did. It wouldn’t help Dick’s temper, already short from being fourteen and sleepy after patrol and having just been reminded he was still a child. But he couldn’t help but snort at the idea of an underwear model and a cryptid marching into Gotham. 

“What?” Dick squawked indignantly and pushed himself upright again. “What’s so funny about that? The paper said Superman’s an alien. This thing’s probably alien. Maybe he could do something about it.”

“I’m not calling Superman. And we don’t know for sure that he  _ is  _ an alien. The media gets the facts wrong all the time.”

Dick considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “Then you can call Wonder Woman. She’ll probably know what they are. She’s been around  _ forever _ .”

Bruce chuckled and pulled the boy back to settle against his chest.

“I’m not calling her either. They don’t know Gotham like we do. They’d just make an even bigger mess and then where would we be, hm?”

“They don’t have to know Gotham to take care of one little corner of it.” Dick protested sleepily. “As far as we know, there’s not even a rogue involved. That’s about as safe as it gets for crime fighting in Gotham.” Bruce hummed noncommittally and Dick scrunched up his nose. “Bruce. You gotta call somebody. You need help.”

“And how am I supposed to get into contact with either of them?” He countered. He gasped in mock surprise and jostled Dick, just enough to prompt a sleepy giggle. “Do you have some kind of Superman signal I don’t know about? A phone with a direct line to Wonder Woman?”

“Bruce, you’re the  _ Batman _ .” He paused, fighting an enormous yawn that distorted his next words. “If you wanted to get in touch with them, you could think of something.”

Bruce hummed and kissed the crown of his head.

“I think it’s past your bedtime. Get to bed. You’ve got school tomorrow, and Alfred will have my head if I keep you down here much longer.”

Dick huffed and slid from his lap, dragging his feet toward the elevator. Bruce watched him go, the hint of a frown still on his face, but fondness in his eyes. Dick paused when he passed through the entrance and stuck his head back through the open elevator doors. 

“I think you just don’t want to ask for help, that’s all.”

“Dick,” Bruce said warningly.

“You’re always telling me to call you if I get in over my head, that there’s nothing shameful or wrong about admitting you need help. Maybe you should just take your own advice.” He waved smugly and hit the button to close the lift door before Bruce could think of a counter.

Bruce scowled as he turned back to his research. “Of all the cheek.”

Bruce had poured over every piece of evidence they’d collected that night and was beginning his second go-round by the time the elevator dinged and Alfred stepped out, bearing a tray of tea and a very familiar expression. 

“What?” Bruce said, his tone flat and cautious. 

“Nothing, sir.” Alfred said lightly, busying himself with transferring the steaming cup of tea, sugar, and cream from tray to desktop. He very pointedly did not meet Bruce’s eye.

“Alfred. I know that look.” He rubbed at his face, tiredly. He’d been up too late to try and remember whatever he’d done to displease the older man. “It’s something. Just spit it out.”

“The young master had quite a bit to say about patrol tonight.” Alfred said archly. “And I rather think he has a point. That’s all.” 

“Alfred, you can’t be serious.”

Alfred pursed his lips and reloaded the tray with the empty juice box and the leftovers of Dick’s post-patrol snack.

“I only mean that the boy is quite correct.” He cut his eyes at Bruce, meeting his gaze squarely for the first time all night. A part of Bruce wanted to shrivel at his radiating disapproval. “It wouldn’t do to forget that you are only human yourself, Master Bruce.” 

Bruce looked away, frown hardening into an outright scowl.

“Alfred, you know I can’t call--lord, Alfred,  _ Superman? _ Wonder Woman? No one’s even seen Wonder Woman in the last twelve or thirteen years. And it’s too risky to have supers running around the city. The Rogues might get  _ ideas _ .” 

Alfred harrumphed.

“That may be so, sir. It is true that meta powers are often unpredictable-- dangerous, even. But the point stands on its own merit. You don’t know what these things are, what they’re capable of. But it’s quite possible that they’re something that one man-- particularly a man with no real powers of his own-- can take on successfully. And I doubt that you’ll find a willing assistant in Gotham.” Alfred scoffed. “Who would you ask? That Poison Ivy woman? Oh yes, I can see it now. A partnership for the ages, that.”

Bruce gritted his teeth and counted to ten.

“You  _ know  _ why I can’t call.” 

“Do I?” Alfred said cuttingly. “The only reason that comes to mind at present is your foolish pride.”

“I don’t need the  _ attention _ .” Bruce hissed. “I’ve stayed under the radar outside of Gotham this far and I intend to keep it that way.” He snorted. “And could you imagine their reaction if I revealed myself as a hero, only to immediately ask for their help? They’d never take me seriously, then. I don’t need their pity on top of everything else.” 

It was a truth sufficient for the occasion, though not the whole truth. Alfred knew as well as Bruce did the real reason wouldn’t call. And Bruce had to believe that he understood, even if he didn’t agree. It was a truth best left unspoken. 

“You have more attention than you’d like to believe, Master Bruce.” Alfred said crisply. “Whether you want it to or not, word gets around. Would it not be better to control  _ how  _ your existence comes to the attention of the other heroes?” Alfred paused, held Bruce’s gaze with his own. “As for pity-- I should think they’d have more pity for a man who died, unable to admit his weaknesses than a man who lived because he overcame them with another’s help.”

“What do you expect me to do then?” He snapped. “Take out a classified ad in the Daily Planet? ‘Vigilante seeks superhuman assistance in job too big for one human to handle? Bring references to the Green Plate outside Gotham to join the party-- experience with aliens preferred?’” 

Alfred sniffed.

“You can do better than that, I’m sure.” 

“Alfred, this is insane.” Bruce shook his head vehemently and turned back to the batcomputer. “I’m not calling them.”

Alfred picked up the loaded tray with more force than he needed, dishes rattling as they slid around the silver tray. 

“Then your damned ego may well be the death of us all. I’ve known for a long time that you despise asking for help. You’ve always insisted on trying to do everything yourself, even if it put you at risk of danger or embarrassment or frustration. I once thought it an admirable trait, to a degree. You are well past that degree now.” Alfred strode towards the elevator, dishes clinking against the tray as if his hands shook. “You claim to want to work for the good of Gotham. I hope you haven’t forgotten that, if you want to speak of the needs of the many and wants of the few, that that few should include yourself, lest you run the risk of hypocrisy.”

Bruce’s jaw worked and he spun around just in time to watch Alfred hit the elevator button with an elbow. His expression was schooled into careful blankness.

“Good night, Master Bruce. I’ll see you in the morning.” 

Bruce glared at the floor a long moment before yelling after Alfred. “I’m not calling them! I can’t even do it even if I wanted to! I’m not calling them!” 

\--------------

A week later he leaned back in the flimsy metal chair and eyed the man approaching the door of the Green Plate diner. He was nondescript, but large, his clothes ill fitting in a way that seemed less intentional than Bruce’s own current state of dress. He was wearing a hat, but took it off as he approached the door. The hasty glance around he’d given before entering made Bruce suspect he was the person he was waiting for. Bruce sighed, resisting the urge to get up and sprint out down the street for the fourth or fifth time in the fifteen minutes he’d been waiting already. He couldn’t  _ believe  _ he was doing this. 

He glanced down at his hands in his lap. It was broad daylight and a first meeting, so there would be no costumes. He’d stained his skin--forehead to collarbone, arms elbow to fingertips--just enough to turn his cool caucasion undertones into warm ones. A bit of greasepaint on key parts of his nose made the bridge look narrower, the nostrils wider. He’d used fake eyelashes to subtly alter the shape of his eyebrows and dabbed a little spot on his jaw as if he’d cut himself shaving. He’d worked on his ears a little with some liquid latex, fiddling with bits of his face until he didn’t know his own reflection. Nothing too dramatic, but enough to make him unrecognizable. Pair the theater makeup with a bulky sweater that fit him poorly in a color that made his eyes look more green than blue, and a pair of baggy blue jeans and sneakers that had seen better days, and he may as well have been wearing the cowl for all that anyone knew who he was. He’d come out of the bathroom to find Dick eagerly waiting to see the transformation and had been accused of being a witch, which had made him feel safe, but also smug. 

He was correct about the stranger by the door. A waitress emerged onto the diner’s patio seating with the man behind her and showed him to Bruce’s table with a bored service smile. “Dirk Knight, party of three,” she said, waving him into a chair. “Do you want to order now or wait til your last friend comes?” 

The man glanced at Bruce and away quickly. “Just sweet tea for me, if you don’t mind.” 

“Coming right up,” the waitress said and headed back inside. 

The man sat. 

Bruce said nothing. 

The man drummed his fingers briefly against the tabletop before beginning to fiddle with the napkin that held his fork and knife. Bruce, never one to fidget, watched him. Up close the man was not spectacular. He was handsome, certainly, but he had the kind of face your eyes slid right off of. His jaw sat slightly uneven on his face, the cleft in his chin a little off center, his eyes pale blue and darting around. He smelled faintly of cheap hair pomade and cedar. Bruce felt like he should have looked larger than he did, but supposed the man’s horrific posture made him look smaller. His fingers worked to fold absent lines into the paper napkin and one heel jiggled up and down as he sat. He seemed to be chewing the inside of one cheek. His glasses were smudged. 

“So,” he said slowly, looking at Bruce, then quickly away. Then back at Bruce, then at the table, then the ground, then his napkin, then the building across the street, then at Bruce again. “...Dirk Knight?” 

_ That  _ had been Dick’s idea, and by that time Bruce was so sick of writing emails back and forth and trying to plan a meeting that wouldn’t end in absolute disaster and possible destruction of city property that he’d been too tired to think of anything else. He shrugged one shoulder. “How else was I supposed to let you know you’d found the right place?” 

“I reckon you’ve got a point,” the man said, looking around again. “So should we...I mean, do we need to introduce ourselves, or…”

“I think we can save it until our last guest shows up,” Bruce said.

The man nodded. “Right, yeah, of course.” He held relatively still and remained silent for another five seconds before saying “It’s kinda exciting though, isn’t it? I’ve never teamed up with any other supers before.” 

Bruce closed his eyes and took a fortifying breath before opening them again. He was starting to get a headache. “I think we can save all of that as well,” he said carefully.

“Oh, right. Okay. Sorry.” He did not squirm in his seat physically, but Bruce had a fourteen year old in his home who did the same sort of impatient shift of weight with no real movement. He was reminded of a half-grown pup, awkward and unfinished. How long did it take for Superman’s brand of alien to reach adulthood,  _ proper  _ adulthood, brain done growing and all? 

The waitress returned with a glass of iced tea and a pot of coffee, taking the time to refill Bruce’s mug while she was there. As she left, Bruce had to watch the man before him take a sip from his glass, wrinkle his nose, and add two more packets of fake sugar. To the iced glass. Where it would never dissolve. “Something wrong with the tea?” he asked, not because he wanted to know, but because he was a little too horrified to hide his surprise.

The man sighed. “I just haven’t been able to find a decent sweet tea since I came to the northeast,” he said, a wistful note in his voice. 

Bruce’s headache pulsed a little. He took a sip of his own coffee. Time passed at a crawl. It could have been two minutes or a hundred years with Bruce sitting motionless and the man looking like he was going to explode if someone looked at him too hard, before the waitress walked to their table again. Looking a little dazed this time and with a woman in tow. Wonder Woman, specifically.

No, she wasn’t in costume, and yes, she was keeping a relatively low profile, but the thing about being  _ Wonder _ Woman was the wonder bit was hard to hide. “Thank you,” she said to the waitress as she sat, dipping her head as gracious as if she was greeting royalty. “Might I have a glass of water with lemon, if you would be so kind?” 

“Of course,” the waitress said faintly and headed off. 

“Warming up a bit today, isn’t it, boys?” the newcomer asked with a sincere smile as she shrugged her coat onto the back of her chair. Wonder Woman close up, as it turned out, was a tall, broad woman with biceps as large as Bruce’s face and skin of an olive tone that danced right on the edge of light brown. Her black hair had an almost auburn glint in the direct sunlight and she had pulled it back into a loose braid. She had an odd, ageless quality to her face, and while she was not a particularly hairy woman, she also clearly was not interested in the removal of what was there. Her eyes were dark brown and when she smiled there was a hint of crow’s feet at their corners. She was drop dead  _ gorgeous,  _ and the man across from Bruce was looking at her slackjawed. She reached out with one leg and hooked her foot around a chair at another table, dragging it closer and plopping her feet on it. 

The waitress returned with her water quickly and said she’d be back for their food orders. Bruce hoped they wouldn’t be staying that long. “Well,” he began, the words he’d rehearsed over and over again rolling around in his head. “I’d like to thank you both for coming, first of all. I know this is a little unorthodox--” 

“Yes, I didn’t think you allowed other supers in your city at all,” the woman cut in. 

Bruce fumbled a moment. “...Not generally, no, but--” 

“It’s a nice city,” said the man. “Big. Kind of...dirty?” he glanced at the buildings around the diner. “Do you really handle all of it on your own? Do you fly too?” 

“...No.” 

“How do you get around?” 

“...I drive. Can we get back on topic please?” He was losing his script quickly. 

“Oh, right, yeah, sorry,” said the man, and Bruce was beginning to doubt he really was Superman by this point. He opened his mouth to continue but before he could, the other man was turning to the woman. “You’ve worked with other supers before, right?” 

The woman nodded. “Oh, yes, several times. It’s always an interesting experience. Is this your first meet up?” 

The man nodded back, emphatically. “Mmhm. I’ve been nervous about it.” 

“No reason for it. I’ve seen footage of your work. You’re very good.” 

Probably-Superman  _ blushed.  _ “Thank you, ma’am.” 

“You can call me Diana,” she said, turning a little in her seat and pulling her make-shift foot rest closer. 

The sheer, chaotic  _ delight _ that began in the other man’s eyes and slowly radiated out to his face could have powered the sun for another millennia. Bruce’s headache pulsed up a notch. “...I’m Kal-El,” the man said, lowering his voice and leaning toward them a little, elbows on the table, posture worsening.

Then they turned to Bruce, ignorant of the twin throbbing in each temple. “...I am Batman,” he grumbled. 

Diana made a face that he recognized on Alfred as managing to stifle a snort. “I should hope so, or we have the wrong table.”

“Some of us are not interested in revealing any forms of identity,” Bruce said with a mild glare. She smiled kindly at him and shrugged one massive shoulder. Her face shone with honesty—one could not work so intimately with the Truth and not be permanently changed by it. She was dripping with it. It was part of what made her so lovely, and likely what was making Kal-El stare with that painfully earnest expression. Looking at either of them too long hurt somehow, so Bruce dropped his eyes to the table. “Look, if you two aren’t going to let me get a word in edgewise, then can I show you what the problem is?” 

Superman nodded. “Oh, for sure. Just lemme find a place to change.”

—————-

It turned out Superman was accustomed to changing in phone booths. This being Gotham, the city had had what few that had been installed removed about a decade past after the city council realized that most citizens avoided them. Generally when opened they revealed someone shooting up or a couple in the throes of passion or a dumped mob kill instead of just a phone. 

“Don’t worry,” Bruce said gruffly, leading the two newcomers down a side street and calling the batmobile. “You can change in the car.”

Kal-El turned red and shuffled his feet and didn’t look at Wonder Woman. “Aww, shucks, I don’t know if I can. I mean, I’m not going completely indecent, but—“

“There’s a divider between the front and the back,” Bruce explained. Until Dick had begun crimefighting with him, the batmobile had been a sleek two-seater. The first time Bruce had been injured while Dick was with him he’d realized it was imbecilic to try to navigate the city with a hyperactive child in the equivalent of a superhero’s sports car and had traded it in for the equivalent of a superhero minivan. Still fairly small and sleek, but now with enough room for a grown man to languish in the back while a young teen sat in the passenger’s seat fretting and complaining about the man turning on autopilot when his feet could easily reach the pedals.

“Oh. I guess that’s all right then.” He climbed into the back seat and messed around with various switches before finding the one that raised the screen between front and back. Luckily there were no dangerous switches or buttons in the back. Diana slid into the passenger’s side, for which Bruce was eternally grateful. Had she decided she was going to drive the batmobile, he wasn’t sure how he would have ousted her.

He sat behind the wheel, shedding his bulky sweater while Wonder Woman folded her coat neatly and laid it on the dashboard. Bruce started the car and hit a button over his head that opened a compartment that held his cowl for safe keeping. Diana looked back at him again, the corners of her lips twitching up. “So do you also wear your suit under your day clothing regularly, like Kal-El?”

Bruce huffed, trying to pull on the cowl and drive at the same time. “...as it’s made of Kevlar, no. Today is a special circumstance.”

“Kevlar?” Came Kal-El’s puzzled response from behind them. 

“Not all of us are bullet proof, Superman. The criminals and the police both have guns; neither group is fond of my work.” Cowl on, Bruce thought about trying to shimmy out of his pants and promptly discarded the idea, choosing to continue driving half-dressed. At least the cowl was on now. He felt more in control with the cowl on.

“The police shoot at you?” Superman sounded shocked for some reason.

Bruce’s headache spiked up another notch. “Being a vigilante is illegal,” he said slowly. 

Diana chuckled. “I myself have been arrested many times for crimes related to vigilantism.” A rustle of cloth in that direction distracted Bruce. He glanced over at her, then away. Then turned his whole head toward the passenger seat and away again very quickly, his eyebrows rising into the ears of his cowl, his face darkening. Wonder Woman, it seemed, had no compunctions about changing in the front, and she did not wear her armor beneath her clothes, just a thin shift to prevent metal chafing. He accelerated and began weaving through traffic. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could leave this personal hell behind him.

“That’s odd,” Kal-El was continuing from the back. “Nobody’s ever tried to arrest me before.” 

“Are you certain you just haven’t noticed?” Diana asked. 

“I think I’d notice people shooting at me. Maybe it’s because I cooperate with the police in Metropolis. Have you tried working with the department here?”

The wave of indignation that swept over Bruce was enough to distract him from doggedly ignoring whatever was happening in his peripheral vision. “I would  _ never _ .”

“I have heard rumors of Gotham police corruption,” Diana said.

“It’s as bad as whatever you’ve heard.” He risked a glance at Diana again—oh, thank god, she was snapping on a breastplate. 

That garnered a contemplative hum from Kal-El. “Maybe you should do something about that.”

“Believe me, I have been  _ trying.  _ The city does not operate or change at my whim.”

“No mind control or hypnosis powers, then?”

“What? No.”

Kal-El hummed again. “Your car is fast. Are you fast too?”

“No.” 

“Do you have some sort of enhanced vision?” Wonder Woman asked beside him. His temples pulsed.

“No.”

“Can you leap across rooftops with a single bound?” Superman again.

“Not without a grapple gun, no.”

“What  _ do _ you do, then?”

He let a beat go by while he tried to figure out how he could possibly answer that. “I’m a detective. The world’s greatest detective.”

Diana’s slight smile grew crooked and tricky. “Does anyone else call you that?” 

The screeching of the batmobile‘s brakes covered Kal-El’s delighted snort. “We’re here,” Bruce said, voice deep and Batman-gruff. “This alley has the closest sewer grate to the pods.” 

The back door opened first, Kal-El tumbling out of the seat in a red and royal blue knot. Bruce ignored Diana’s piercing, honest gaze on him and waited, jaw clenched, for her to exit the batmobile before he struggled out of the rest of his clothing. He took a moment to breathe deep and straighten his cowl. 

When he left the car to join the others, there was a moment of unexpected silence as the three examined each other as vigilantes rather than civilians, with Diana being the only one not trying to hide that that’s exactly what she was doing. Bruce did not like the way her gaze made him feel, like a shiny grey beetle pinned to a card behind museum glass, like a live wire shooting off sparks, exposed and raw. She’d kept the braid in her hair, the iconic crown sitting neatly behind her bangs rather than on her forehead. Her costume was armor, Greek in style, with a leather girdle and sturdy breastplate painted dark blue. Bruce had seen photos and grainy footage of Diana fighting in a variety of costumes, most of them in some kind of corset style top, but this was just a solid metal piece with engraved swirl patterns along the bust to suggest the same silhouette. The top piece, over the golden Wonder Woman insignia, was silver and plain and covered her shoulders but did not contain her arms. She wore gauntlets and boots under greaves and stood like a warrior, the Lasso of Truth looped and bound to her side. She was radiant, perfect, terrifying, and made Kal-El look small.

Kal-El looked...different. Very different. Taller. His posture wasn’t making Bruce want to call a chiropractor anymore, and just that was working wonders. Had Wonder Woman not been standing next to him, he would have loomed, larger than life. Non-threatening but also oddly not approachable. His costume was the same as the videos and newspaper images Bruce had seen, and seemed to be just designed to accentuate muscles rather than offer any protection . Which was annoying. His cape fluttered despite the fact that there was no wind. Also annoying. Bruce’s cape always behaved exactly as he wanted it to. He tamped down a strange swell of emotion before recognizing exactly what it was.  _ Disappointment.  _ Superman had come before him by nearly five years, and he was sure after meeting Kal-El that he was older than Bruce was himself by a few years. He had expected something...more, somehow. Someone who had things more together, someone who seemed more impressive or capable than Bruce was. He cut an awe-inspiring figure, yes, but up close and not actively saving anyone he just seemed...inhuman. 

There was distance between Kal-El and the costume, Bruce thought suddenly, blinking and lifting his chin a little more. This man didn’t know himself yet. And in their line of work, that was dangerous. As powerful as Superman was reported to be, his lack of self-knowledge could make him the most dangerous person Bruce had ever met. 

Alarm bells began firing off in his head, but he ignored them and their increase in volume as he turned his back to the two supers. “We should get going,” he said gruffly, nodding to the sewer grate. 

  
  


“Agreed,” Diana said, a hint of a smile in her voice. Bruce heard her following, her steps surprisingly heavy in boots that looked light. 

Superman followed without a sound to his steps—when Bruce turned his head he could see the man was floating. “I guess the sooner we go into the sewers, the sooner we can leave them again.”

“You sound as if you’re not looking forward to such an adventure,” Diana teased as Bruce opened the grate and began climbing down. 

“I don’t care for sewers,” he heard Superman say. “This suit is a nightmare to wash.”

That suit is a nightmare period, Bruce thought to himself. Diana didn’t bother using the ladder. She simply jumped into the hole, fell ten feet, and landed hard enough to send an echoing thump through the main pipeline. Bruce made a note: she was heavier than she seemed to be.

Kal-El floated delicately down to join them. “I really don’t trust these big city sewers,” he said, wrinkling his nose and putting a hand to his face, as if that would block the smell. “I’ve heard there’s alligators down here.”

“That’s just an urban legend, Kal-El.”

“Actually, it’s a crocodile,” Bruce said at the same time. Both supers turned to look at him, Diana in astonishment and delight, Kal-El in horror and disbelief. “And there’s only one. And he’s in Arkham right now, so. We should be in the clear.” 

Kal-El continued to gape. “You’re kidding,” Diana said.

Bruce shook his head. “I wish I was. He’s a major criminal player in Gotham and he’s killed a lot of people.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” Kal-El cut in. He had remained floating above the sewer waters and was hunching a little to avoid contact with the walls and ceiling, which really wasn’t necessary considering the sewer mains were easily fifteen feet in diameter. “Diana. Were you really formed out of clay?”

“So my mother claims. Are you truly from another planet?”

Kal-El flinched as a drop of water hit the back of his neck. “Yeah.” 

“What was it like? The other planet?” So the Daily Planet’s expose on Superman hadn’t hit Diana, wherever she went when she wasn’t interfering. Bruce cringed behind the mask at the sudden awkwardness rising between the three of them.

“I don’t know. I was just a baby. And then the planet exploded.” 

Bruce turned his head to better see the others out of the corner of his eye. Superman’s face, already so glassy and distant compared to how he seemed in civilian clothes, was even more closed off from before. He wondered how much of the expose had been the truth and how much had been falsified to protect whoever he was really. “Do you really live at the North Pole?” 

Superman grinned sheepishly, the first real emotion besides disgust to cross this strange face, only unmasked in the literal sense. “No, I don’t live there. I  _ do  _ have a base there, and I go up there to wrestle polar bears sometimes, but I live in Metropolis.” 

Strictly speaking, Bruce didn’t need to know that. “I don’t think you’re supposed to wrestle those,” he said hesitantly instead. “Are they endangered?”

“I don’t  _ hurt  _ them. I only  _ fight  _ them sometimes. It gets boring up there.” 

“But you know what happened to your planet.” 

Superman floated ahead of Bruce. “If you’re trying to ask about that Planet article, I fed them all that information, yeah. It seemed like the easiest way to keep them from digging further. They have some  _ really  _ determined reporters.” 

“So it’s true?” Bruce asked, at the same time Diana said “what article?” 

“Most of it. I have videos of Krypton, and a big hologram archive. But I haven’t really sorted through everything.” Another drop of water hit him, this time on his cheek, and he shook his head like a dog.4

Bruce almost stopped walking. “...You have an archive. About your planet.” 

“Yeah. It’s pretty big. It’s like a giant computer that has a voice and kind of a personality. It takes the shape of my dad, or so it says. It could take other shapes, but I can’t really think of anything I want it to do or say. It contains all of the knowledge that Krypton had accumulated before it was lost. I really don’t spend much time up there.

“Why not?” Bruce demanded. All the times he had fervently  _ wished _ technology could catch up to what he wanted to do for Gotham, all the times he wished he could find more answers, wished that archiving was  _ easier... _

“It’s too sad.” 

His eyes narrowed. “Too sad.” 

Superman twisted to look over his shoulder at Bruce, a flicker of something indecipherable behind his eyes.

"The Fortress by another name is just a mausoleum. One that contains the entirety of my species." He turned away and resumed floating down the corridor. "I never stay long, if I can help it."

The moment broke and Bruce swallowed down words that didn't need to be said here and now. He sped up and took the lead once more.

"Not far now. Keep your wits about you."

Wonder Woman grunted an acknowledgement, hand drifting to her lasso. Superman sharpened, face taking on a more inhuman cast than before. They made the last part of the trek in silence but for the slap of water against their boots and the occasional skittering, just out of sight. Bruce halted the others at the next split in the tunnels.

"We're about a mile away from the water treatment plant. The pods are just around that corner. Don't touch them unless you're absolutely sure what they are. We don't know what they'll do when disturbed and I'd rather not risk an explosive reaction or whatever it is getting into the water supply. A hygiene crisis is the last thing we need."

Wonder Woman nodded seriously. Superman mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "I'm having a hygiene crisis." Bruce's head throbbed and he bit back another acidic comment, instead opting to turn sharply and make his cape flare out just enough to spatter the other man with water. Superman shuddered with a noise of disgust and Bruce allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch upwards. That was called controlling your cape.

Whatever satisfaction he got from that act died away when he rounded the corner. The pods had swollen up to nearly twice their original size and gleamed wetly. As he watched, the outer shell of a pod near the bottom of the stack bulged outwards, a shadow moving just beneath the surface. The others had followed close behind and came to a stop on either side of him. Wonder Woman leaned forward to peer at the nearest one.

"They look like... eggs." She said, squinting and tilting her head. "I've never seen their like before." She straightened, flipping her braid back behind her with a toss of her head. "Even the eggs of a hydra are not so large as this. Nor would there be so many."

Bruce grunted and turned to Superman. Superman studied them with pursed lips. Shrugged and put his hands on his hips.

"I've got no clue, Batman. Could be anything."

Bruce counted to ten before grinding out the words.

"Give it your best guess."

Superman hemmed and hawed, gliding around the possibly-eggs to view them from every angle. He thought. Thought some more. Bruce could feel his headache mutating into a migraine. Superman pulled up short, and flitted back to Bruce's elbow.

"Y'know what? I think this calls for some research. I'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail!"

He disappeared before Bruce could say anything at all, speeding off so quickly that the water was blasted out of his path, sluicing into the walls and crashing back into the corridor hard enough that Bruce almost lost his footing. He glared at the empty space where Superman had been.

"I like him." Wonder Woman declared cheerfully.

Bruce grunted and flicked water from his face. Wonder Woman sloshed to the adjacent wall and leaned against it, not seeming to care about the slime that oozed from the old brick. She pulled a short sword from the sheath at the small of her back- small enough that he hadn't noticed it before- and slipped a sharpening stone from a small pouch hanging on her belt. Bruce raised an eyebrow, though the mask hid it from view.

"You brought a sword."

She inspected the blade's edge and ran the stone across it once, twice, the dry rasp of it filling the sewers with sibilant echoes. She paused in her movements, eyes flicking over to him.

"You didn't? I always bring at least one blade with me. You never know where, or when, you might encounter trouble."

Bruce frowned.

"I don't use weapons."

Wonder Woman laughed, a loud braying thing. It would be infectious if he weren't the thing being laughed at. "And what," she said. "Do you call those?" She pointed her sword at his heavily armored gloves.

The back of his neck heated. "I don't use blades," he corrected.

She raised an eyebrow, full lips splitting into a smile. "I can smell lies, Batman."

He narrowed his eyes. He didn't think that was strictly true, but he wouldn't put it past her. He thought again.

"I don't use lethal force." He said finally. "And I don't use weapons that could cause lethal damage." He paused. "Rather, I don't use weapons that are only capable of lethal damage."

She stared at him, nonplussed. "And why, in Hera's name, do you not?" She shook her head incredulously and went back to sharpening her sword. Her words underlined by the rasp of stone on metal. "Your enemies will do you no such favors. And there are some--" she put what Bruce thought was an unreasonable amount of force into her next stroke. "Who deserve nothing more than a quick end. And some who deserve an end much slower than that." 

Bruce pursed his lips, eyeing the lasso of truth with a hint of trepidation he was sure would be hidden by the cowl. The hair on the back of his arms stood up as the feeling of being pinned to a card under the magnifying glass of her gaze returned. There were ways to answer that thought that he could not speak out loud. It was complex, and personal, and it was his to keep close. He was intimate with death in ways that were impossible to articulate into speech, and he wasn’t interested in trying. Not with a bastion of truth. Not now. The chance that she  _ could  _ smell lies hung in the air like a threat, however, and he had a feeling that she would know if he was obfuscating, and she wouldn’t let it go. He had to tell her the shallowest part of the truth and hope it rang true enough for her to leave him be. 

“...I won’t argue that there may be some who deserve to die,” he said slowly. “But I can’t be the person who decides that. That’s the duty of the court. Of the people who have the training to carry out justice, to make those decisions that others can’t. That’s the best thing-- the safest thing. If everyone operated outside of the legal system, any murder could be justified.” 

“But you’re already operating outside of the legal system,” Wonder Woman said, pointing her sword at him. “You’re a vigilante. Not one of the popular ones, either.” 

“That doesn’t change the fact that no one man should have the power of life and death without oversight or stricture.” He hesitated for a couple of seconds, half waiting for her to respond and half calculating how long he should pause before going on to make the next part sound enough like the whole truth. “...Besides. I know myself. If I began killing, I would not stop. My judgement would become… clouded. I will not trust enough in my morals to think that every life ended at my hand deserved it-- especially not without a trial or chance of redemption.” 

He did not meet her gaze. He didn’t think he could, honestly. He could still feel it, creeping along his suit as if looking for weaknesses. He wasn’t sure what he would see in her face. 

When she spoke, her voice held a kind of weight he couldn’t say for certain was directed at him. “You, Batman, are a warrior worthy of the name.” 

_ The name Batman? _ He thought briefly, nodding. A sound like a bullet train broke through the sewer, heralding the return of Superman shortly before Kal-El himself pulled to a sharp mid-air stop in front of them. The blast of air pushed Bruce back several inches despite his bracing with the cape, and caused a couple of the pods to swell dangerously before subsiding again. Wonder Woman was undisturbed. 

“I heard what you were talking about,” Superman said with an easy tone, as if he hadn’t just flown in with the force of a jet. “You know, you really shouldn’t kill anyway. It’s immoral.” 

Wonder Woman stared at him a little blankly. Bruce’s migraine began tap dancing at his right temple. “Thank you for your input, Superman,” he said flatly. “We’ll be sure to keep it in mind. In the meantime, did you find out anything about the pods?” 

“Oh! Right. Yeah, no, those things are bad news. They’re called…” Superman scratched his head for a moment. “...I can’t rightly recall the exact pronunciation. It was in Kryptonian, and I don’t speak it. The sounds are different.” 

“I don’t believe the name of the thing is of any particular import in this case, Kal-El,” Diana said diplomatically, putting away the whetstone. 

Superman nodded. “Of course. Well, they  _ are _ eggs. Or at least a close approximation of eggs. They’re laid by a creature who is mostly harmless once it’s past larval stage, but the larva are dangerous. They’re parasites.” 

“What do they feed on?” Bruce asked. He looked over at one of the pods, examining the swell and fall of the thing as the larva inside it moved. He couldn’t determine any weaknesses without further information. 

“Minerals, water, plant life--basically, the earth itself. Once the eggs are laid underground, they enter an incubation period where they grow. When they hatch, they burrow deeper into the planet and begin feeding off its resources. And they get big, bigger than this. These ones are still a couple months from hatching, but even that’s too close for comfort. Even a small clutch can apparently drain a planet dry in just a few years. Then they cocoon in the shell of the planet and emerge fully grown.” 

Wonder Woman stood up straighter, her hand tightening on the hilt of her sword. “Then they are a threat to us, and we do need to end them.” 

“‘Fraid so. They’re not sentient. They’re just like some kind of animal. It’s not really their fault, but we can’t be having them here. No different than clearing a wasp nest off the back porch.” 

“I bet you regret not carrying a lethal weapon now, Dirk Knight,” Wonder Woman said with a grin. 

Bruce huffed. “You don’t have to call me that. And I am capable of taking out a few parasites.” 

Superman shook his head. “There’s one more thing. The larva themselves may be dangerous, depending on how far along they are, but if they’re here they also have predators nearby. There’s some kind of codependent species that tends to the clutches until they hatch, then use as many larva as they can catch to feed their own young. Once we attack these things, they’re going to come out of hiding.” 

“What are they like?” Wonder Woman asked, planting her feet in the sewer muck and looking into the shadows. 

Superman spread his arms to indicate size. “Big. Mean. Ugly. Kind of looked like some kind of dog to me, except they’ve got hands.” 

“Like the Hyenamen of the plains. Excellent.” She bared her teeth in a save grin that Bruce didn’t like the looks of at all. “I welcome the challenge.” 

“Can we take a moment to work out a strategy to deal with--” Bruce began, but Wonder Woman was already sprinting at one of the pods. She shouted “Ares guide my blade!” and cut through the first pod as easily as if it was paper. Instantly they were surrounded by  _ things. _

They looked nothing like dogs to Bruce, but maybe dogs were different in Nowhere, Midwest where Kal-El’s accent and mannerisms seemed to derive from. They walked on all fours, and Bruce guessed they were each maybe seven feet tall on the outside, with gleaming teeth that appeared to be serrated. The noise they made as they charged Wonder Woman was  _ horrible, _ like squealing train breaks at the decibel of a fighter jet mixed with some kind of teeth-aching  _ rumble _ . Bruce staggered backwards a moment, every atom of his being violently rejecting itself in a visceral gut feeling. The noise hurt, and it somehow made the suit pinch and drag along suddenly sensitive skin. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it was for the other two with their super hearing, but when he saw Superman jumping into the fray,  _ his  _ face bore only a slight grimace. 

Bruce shook himself and the grudging feeling of respect off, his hands curling into fists as he pulled the detonators from a pouch on his belt. They weren’t strong enough to do more than knock a human out, but these pods looked much more fragile. He threw two at a time into a cluster of pods and as expected, they broke. Fluid and half-formed crawling things oozed out. He wished he had  _ some  _ kind of weapon. He didn’t want to touch the alien creatures with his hands, even gloved. He settled for stomping on the smaller ones and tossed the larger ones under the feet of the thundering guardians as they closed in. 

Superman and Wonder Woman were surprisingly loud fighters, their grunts and cries occasionally reaching him even over the din of the dog-creatures’ deafening howls. It helped him figure out where they were when he could hear them--Wonder Woman drawing the ire of most of the guardians to his left, Superman behind him doing much the same. He hoped they could handle them. The thought of himself and Dick fighting these creatures alone suddenly sprang to mind and he suppressed a shudder, using a concussive pulse on one gauntlet to punch through an egg sac. They would have been torn to pieces. This was not a fight the Batman was designed to handle at  _ all _ , much less alone, and he hoped the supers had figured that out at least. If they could keep the dogs focused, he could easily dispatch the pods. It was slow going through the noise and muck and mess, but simple work. He dodged smoothly under an arcing swing from Diana’s sword, tossing a smoke pellet at the feet of a dog coming up on her flank. 

A muted explosion took out the next pod. The creatures that oozed out of that one were larger, and emerged snapping mandibles and crawling toward him with an ominous low rattling noise. Bruce clenched his jaw and hit them with another detonator. They barely shuddered. He jumped over one, flitting dangerously close to a guardian before Superman grabbed the beast by the leg and threw it into another one. Bruce dodged the flailing limbs, the movement forcing him into one of the larva. He pushed each foot into a jaw, straining against the crushing force. The creature writhed, and he could see a gruesome mouth appearing. It had to be a mouth, but it didn’t look like any sort of mouth he recognized. 

He threw a detonator straight into the mouth. The thing exploded, spraying him with white goo that steamed when it hit his armor. It didn’t burn through the kevlar. This suit was a wash anyway. He picked up one of the mandibles left--it was just longer than his arm, and felt sturdy enough in his grip--and swung it into one of the remaining larva snapping at him. The mandible seemed to be firmer than the rest of the body, and it worked well enough as a blunt weapon. 

Bruce crushed several smaller larva with the mandible before another big one hit. He heard Wonder Woman’s shout, now ahead of him, and he pushed the jaw in between the mandibles of the larva. It clamped down hard, and he yelled “Wonder Woman!” before throwing the creature toward her. She whirled around, sword raised, and sliced it in half as it flew at her. The goo from the creature sizzled as it hit her legs, and she shrieked in pain as the skin blistered. Bruce winced, but it didn’t look too serious. He turned back to the only large larva remaining. 

He had to make a short run of it to keep the thing off his back, pushing him further toward Superman. The snapping, rattling larva followed him. Mindful of the guardian dogs nearby, Bruce pulled another detonator from a pouch on his belt and waited for it to get closer. He prepped a smoke pellet in case one of the guardians got brave, but Superman seemed to be--

\--Picking up one of the guardians and swinging it around again. Bruce turned to look at the movement flashing from the corner of his eye and got hit with the full force of the near hundred pound creature. His feet left the ground. He wasn’t sure which direction he was flying, but it didn’t seem to matter. A sewer wall was going to meet him anyway. He hit the masonry head first and crashed to the ground. 

He woke slowly, nausea blooming at the front of his sinuses, weight lifting from his ribs, blood buzzing uncomfortably. Bruce groaned and rose to his feet, wincing as the sound of the fight and the horrible, horrible noises of the guardians filtered back. Fatigue settled into his bones as the sick feeling faded. He sighed and stomped back toward the commotion. His head pounded. 

“Hey,” he barked at the alien as he drew within range. The guardians were slowing in their attack, and most of the pods were destroyed. “Superman.” 

Kal-El looked up, his suit covered in the black blood of the guardians, and offered up a boyish grin. “What?” 

“Watch what you’re doing!” he shouted. Larva crunched and steamed under his boots.

Heat shot out of Superman’s eyes in rays, melting through a guardian coming up on Bruce’s left--and through part of the sewer wall behind it. That explained why he didn’t use that much. “What do you mean?” 

Was he serious? “You hit me with an alien! You could have  _ killed  _ me, you fucking idiot! You’re lucky I was wearing the cowl or I would have  _ died  _ when I hit that wall!” 

He had the decency to look ashamed, even if he was busy warding off three of the dog-things at once. “I didn’t--I’m sorry, I--”

“Do you go into all your fights like that? What if I’d been a random citizen? Do you always pay that  _ little  _ attention to your surroundings or is this some kind of special case because there’s no  _ buildings  _ to smash down here?” 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you,” Kal-El said, something in his voice sounding stiff and stricken even though his expression didn’t change. He punched one of the guardians, sending it reeling into the ceiling of the sewer. It twitched as it hit the water again, near to Diana, who stabbed it through the chest and drew out her sword, eyeing the two of them briefly. “You’re fine, though, right?” 

“No thanks to you!” 

“The Batman is right,” Wonder Woman pointed out, slashing through a larger larva, carefully, so the insides sprayed away from her as best she could. Her legs and forearms sported several large and ugly blisters and there was a faint smell of singed hair over the odd tang of alien blood and the general stench of sewage. 

“What do you mean? I said sorry--” 

“You fight as if you’ve never fought alongside others before. It’s sloppy. We should maybe have had a practice run before diving in.” 

“ _ You don’t say?” _ Bruce snarled, tossing a smoke pellet at the guardian coming up behind her. They didn’t seem to like the smoke at all, and it gave him a clear path across to where he had left off crushing pods. Superman didn’t speak again, and his mouth pressed into a thin line. 

The grin in Wonder Woman’s voice when she spoke again was unmistakably sly. “You, however, Dirk, fight with others as naturally as breathing.” 

Bruce grunted in response, putting his foot through one of the smaller pods and prepping another detonator. He was running low on these. 

“There is only one explanation, of course. The lone watcher in Gotham is not as lonely as rumors say. You fight with a sidekick.” 

“I don’t have a sidekick.” Dick was his partner. 

“A brother-in-arms, then? You do not fight alone.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Is it a lady friend? Is she...plucky?”

Dick’s incorrigible habit of jumping from the middle of a slide down the banister to swing from the chandelier in the entryway while cackling, or the doctor who had just snorted and said “good luck” when he’d mentioned that while the Ritalin was helping Dick focus, it hadn’t put a dent in his energy. “That’s one word for it,” Bruce muttered under his breath. 

He thought he’d said it quietly enough to avoid detection, but Diana’s chuckle of delight suggested she also had some degree of super hearing that he hadn’t known about. He held back an annoyed huff, but did toss the next grub at her out of spite. She picked up the leg of one of the not-dogs and used it to hit the larva like a baseball. It exploded on impact with the sewer wall, which Bruce had to admit, was incredibly satisfying. 

He threw himself into the fight as the bone-shaking bellows of the hounds began to die down and the next thing he knew, he was casting around for his next target to find the only larva left were a few injured things squirming around underfoot. The acidic gore that was so dangerous seemed to be easily neutralized by the water, and he hoped that wasn’t going to cause problems later. He made a mental note to tell Gordon to have waterworks disable this section of the city’s water treatment until he could run tests. With nothing left to concentrate on, the sounds and fatigue threatened to become overwhelming. He took a deep breath and stepped off to the side to remove himself from the path of combat and to allow himself to just… _ admire  _ his companions _.  _

Wonder Woman and Superman were both incredibly good at what they did. Bruce wasn’t  _ interested  _ in either on a personal level, but objectively speaking, Superman’s suit was skin tight and he had the kind of muscle that looked devastating and functionally should have been useless. And the cultural climate being what it was, Bruce hadn’t had the chance to ogle any such handsome men since college. And Wonder Woman was, well-- _ Wonder  _ Woman. As long as she didn’t turn those piercing dark eyes that seemed to look through him his way, she was stunning, and the armor and sword didn’t hurt that. And the fighting. The fighting was so good. Casual, as if pulling out a sword and shield was something people still did on the regular. He glanced back to Superman just in time to see the cape swish out of the way and--oh. Well. It was a  _ fine  _ butt, but. Disappointingly flat. Bruce pursed his lips together looking between the two of them as Wonder Woman drove her fist  _ through  _ a guardian’s head with a laugh so violent it made Superman look over at her in alarm and--yep, that was hot too. 

Silence rang through the sewers when the last guardian fell. It wasn’t a complete absence of sound--as long as the screaming had gone on, even the water dripping from the walls and the supers’ labored breathing seemed deafening. Once again stripped of a focus, he felt his limbs growing heavy. He was cotton-headed, cotton-mouthed, and stretched too thinly over his frame. It was good he’d decided to lean against the wall, as he wasn’t sure he would have been able to support himself just now without it. 

“We are victorious!” Wonder Woman said, breaking the relative stillness. Her face split open in a triumphant grin. She produced a cloth seemingly from nowhere and wiped down the sword before sheathing it. “And with no injuries!” 

The pulsing in Bruce’s brain intensified and he tamped down a spike of anger. “The knot at the back of my skull would suggest otherwise.” 

“Oh, I forgot the Bat hit his widdle head.” 

Any attraction he’d felt for Wonder Woman shriveled up and died. 

Superman, on the other hand, looked and sounded pinched with something unidentifiable as he looked at Bruce. “Gosh, I’m really sorry about that. Are you alright?” 

Bruce wanted so badly to say  _ no,  _ he was  _ not  _ alright. He was exhausted and every inch of his body hurt, and he was shaking slightly under the kevlar. That he wanted a solid  _ day  _ of sleep, that the air was too loud and too thick to breathe, that his skin was sparking and the suit was too heavy. He wanted to shake Superman, to say  _ no,  _ you nearly  _ killed  _ me, how many  _ others  _ have you killed, what is  _ wrong  _ with you, who  _ are you _ , why don’t you  _ know  _ yourself and your skills and the effects you have on your surroundings, why can’t you  _ see  _ what a problem this is, you  _ have  _ to sort yourself out, this isn’t a  _ game,  _ why are you  _ both  _ still  _ smiling? _ He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to sleep. 

But he was still wearing the cowl, and as long as the cowl was on, he was Batman. Batman never got tired. Though he could admit he was too weary to pick a fight today. “I will be,” he growled, and then couldn’t resist adding “Be more careful.” 

* * *

Bruce was the last one out of the sewer. Both supers paused whatever amiable conversation they were making when he emerged, blinking blearily at the reappearance of the sun. “We make a good team,” Kal-El said as he turned to face Bruce with a shy smile. 

Diana nodded. “Indeed. We did good work today, boys. Feel free to call me whenever you get in over your head. It would be the highest honor to fight at your side again, Dirk Knight.” 

“Yeah, and maybe we could meet up sometime,” Superman pressed on, missing Bruce’s twitch and Diana’s mouth lift in amusement. “You could show me how to fight with people. It’d be really helpful, and I’d be mighty grateful to you.” 

Bruce ignored him, fishing around in the cotton fluff of his brain for the speech he’d prepared. “...Thank you both for your invaluable assistance. I could not have done this on my own. I owe you both a debt. Now get out of my city.” 

Superman’s jaw dropped. Diana went from looking smug to deeply insulted. “I  _ beg  _ your pardon?” she said. 

Bruce trudged to the Batmobile and threw open the passenger’s side door. Kal-El’s clothes were folded in a neat stack in the back seat, while Diana’s were shoved unceremoniously into her purse up on the dashboard. He grabbed both and tossed them behind him without looking to see if they caught them before they hit the ground. He closed the door and started to walk around the hood, fatigue slowing him dramatically. “You’re not from here, you couldn’t possibly understand. You can’t be here doing vigilante work. You’re not the kind of heroes Gotham needs.” 

“Just now we were  _ exactly  _ what Gotham needed,” Kal-El protested hotly, his body language shifting. 

“Yes, and I said thank you. Now you have to get out. Gotham is only big enough for one vigilante and it’s neither of you. I don’t work with you. And I will not hesitate to kick you out bodily if I see you running around my city without permission.” 

“Oh, I’d like to see you  _ try.”  _ When Bruce looked up Kal-El was squaring his shoulders and locking his jaw, and he bit back the urge to curse. He didn’t have the energy to draw up male bravado today, but he did slam the driver’s side door again and take a step in Superman’s direction. 

Diana stepped between them, purse slung over her shoulder, wincing a little with every step. Apparently the surface burns on her legs were starting to catch up with her, and Bruce felt a little better about that somehow. “Peace, Kal-El. This is his home, and we should respect his rules. We will go, Dirk Knight.” 

He grunted and climbed into the Batmobile. “Good,” he shouted at them as he turned over the engine and sped off in the direction of the cave, beginning an earnest debate with himself about the merits of showering first or going straight to bed. 

In the end he decided that, as tired as he was, he was going to claw his own skin off if he didn’t at least rinse and get the worst of the smell out of his hair. The cave was empty when he arrived and headed to the cave’s showers. Stripping off the suit took three times as long as it usually did. He thought he was going to cry when he had to bend down to remove his boots. He  _ did  _ cry when the first spray of water splashed against his too-tight skin. By the time he’d finished a ten minute scrub down with the freshest, strongest, least offensive smelling thing in the bathroom and reemerged in the cave in some of the most expensive boxers he owned, Alfred and Dick had gathered, Alfred sipping a cup of tea and Dick looking like he was ready to vibrate off the floor. He ignored them in favor of pulling on a three hundred dollar pair of cashmere sweatpants. 

“Well?” Dick asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “How’d it go? Did they come? Did you meet them? Is Superman as cool as he looks? How tall is Wonder Woman, because she looks really tall in pictures. Did you figure out what the things were? What happened?” 

Bruce mumbled “Superman threw me into a wall.” 

Alfred let out a knowing, sympathetic hiss and set his tea down on a table. He headed toward the kitchenette, likely to start a hot water bottle. Dick just beamed. “ _ Awesome. _ ” 

Bruce growled and collapsed face down onto the pullout couch without bothering to fumble for extra pillows or throw blankets, finally allowing his pounding muscles to relax. “We are  _ never  _ doing that again,” he said, muffled by the couch cushions, and he could only just make out Dick’s laughter as if coming through the far end of a long tunnel as he drifted off. 

* * *

“We absolutely  _ must  _ do that again,” Diana said as she fell into the chair across from Kal-El at the Green Plate. She’d had a quick dip in the harbor and changed, and he had shaken himself dry before changing in one of the only phone booths he could find in the city. There was only the faintest remainder of sewer scent to them, and the other diners were giving them a wide berth. 

“You’re right,” Kal-El said eagerly, waving to a waitress across the room. “We could help so many other people if we worked together. There wouldn’t be a reason to limit ourselves to individual cities if we could network like that. What if something like  _ this  _ happens again? We need more resources.” 

“I know of a few people we can call. This is such a good idea. We’ll have to credit Batman as well, of course, since he started it. Think of it. We could have a confederation of heroes.” 

Kal-El beamed, his teeth sparkling in his almost-too-wide grin. “A union of metas and aliens, working together for the betterment of the world.” 

“A league of heroes dedicated to justice and peace!” 

“I like the sound of that.” 


End file.
